


The One Where Bruce is Thor's Weakness

by JinxQuickfoot, onward_came_the_meteors



Series: Weaknesses [21]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Incredible Hulk (2008), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Awesome Brunnhilde | Valkyrie (Marvel), BAMF Brunnhilde | Valkyrie (Marvel), Bruce Banner & Thor Friendship, Bruce Banner Feels, Bruce Banner Needs a Hug, Brunnhilde | Valkyrie (Marvel) is a Good Bro, Gen, Hostage Situations, Hurt Bruce Banner, Kidnapping, Loki & Thor Friendship (Marvel), Pre-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Protective Thor (Marvel), Rescue Missions, Thor (Marvel) Feels, Thor (Marvel) is a Good Bro
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-10
Updated: 2021-02-25
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:14:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23574478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JinxQuickfoot/pseuds/JinxQuickfoot, https://archiveofourown.org/users/onward_came_the_meteors/pseuds/onward_came_the_meteors
Summary: The hologram started playing the moment he picked it up. Thor watched it once, then was out of the room in a heartbeat, tracking down Loki and Valkyrie. This was going to take all three of them.Thor wasn’t going to lose anyone else.----------------------------------------------------------------------------Set between the events of Thor: Ragnarok and Infinity War. When Kree kidnap Bruce in order to lure Thor onto their ship, Thor enlists Loki and Valkryie's help to bring their friend home.
Relationships: Bruce Banner & Thor, Brunnhilde | Valkyrie & Thor (Marvel), Loki & Thor (Marvel)
Series: Weaknesses [21]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1672462
Comments: 8
Kudos: 47
Collections: Weaknesses





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Day 21 of the "Weaknesses" writing challenge 
> 
> In my head, this was a fun space adventure, but my writer's brain ordered FEELS
> 
> [Come say hi on Tumblr - I take requests!](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/jinxquickfoot)

Two weeks. Two weeks of drifting through space. Two weeks of grief. Of loss. And of contemplating the future.

Thor did his usual rounds of the ship, talking to what remained of his people, trying to assure them that all was not lost, that Asgard was a people, not a place.

Maybe if he said it enough times, he would believe it himself.

He did not regret the events of Ragnarok. It had been the best decision - the only decision.But he couldn’t get the gleaming palaces out of his mind, the opulent gardens where he and Loki had played as children, or the smiling faces of his childhood friends.

All gone.

But (he reminded himself, _again_ ) all was not lost. He would find a new Asgard; he and his people would rebuild what they had lost. It would be long and hard, but they would do it. They would find a home again.

And even with all he had lost, Thor had regained that which he had thought gone from him forever. Loki mostly kept to himself, and the Asgardians on the ship gave the God of Mischief a wide berth. They had yet undecided what to do about Loki when they got to Earth, but they still had some time before they landed on Thor’s second home (only home, now) to figure that out. Whatever the decision, Thor was beyond thankful to have his brother in his life once more.

Thor was finishing his rounds, making sure to check in with each and every Asgardian, that they all enough food and water, and that they were comfortable. He looked across the room and saw Valkyrie doing the same. She offered him a sad smile, balancing a young child on her lap who was trying to grab her hair.

Thor ended the daily routine where he always did - with Bruce. The physicist had taken up a small room towards the back of the ship that he had claimed as his sanctuary, and no one but Thor or Valkyrie had visited during the two weeks they had been drifting through space.

The moment there was no more danger to fight, no terror left to run from, Bruce had collapsed into himself. Two years of being trapped in the Hulk’s body had finally fully registered with him, and he spent most of the time in his makeshift bed. Thor had at first hoped that this was the first stage in a long recovery process, but as the days passed, and Bruce showed no sign of improvement, Thor’s worry had only grown.

He tapped on the door, a bundle of food and water clutched in his hand. “Banner?”

There was no response. Thor steeled himself and pushed open the door, ready to face the worst.

The room was empty.

“Banner?” Thor called again. “Are you in here?”

It took all of ten seconds to search the tiny room, to ascertain that Bruce was gone. Thor frowned - he had just made his way through the entire ship, and hadn’t seen him anywhere.

That’s when he saw the small device on the bundled up sports jacket Bruce had been using as a pillow.

The hologram started playing the moment he picked it up. Thor watched it once, then was out of the room in a heartbeat, tracking down Loki and Valkyrie. This was going to take all three of them.

Thor wasn’t going to lose anyone else.

***

They had watched the hologram a dozen times now, and it wasn’t getting any easier. Thor felt a stab in his gut every time Valkyrie rewound it to the beginning, and he saw Bruce on his knees, head bowed, being guarded by two Kree soldiers.

The instructions were simple. Turn Thor and Valkyrie over the Kree within two hours, or they would kill Bruce.

“Can they?” Valkyrie asked. “Kill him, I mean. Isn’t he, you know, kind of indestructible?”

“Maybe we should let them,” Loki offered. “Don’t look at me like that,” he added when Thor shot him a _watch it_ look. “Injury brings out the beast, does it not? Let him fight until there is no one left, and then we can just go pick him up.”

_If I turn into the Hulk, I am never going to come back again. And you don’t care._

_“_ No,” Thor decided. “We go in. We fight. We bring him home.”

Loki sighed, and Thor could tell he was refraining from rolling his eyes. “Always playing the mighty hero,” Loki muttered. “So what’s Plan B?”

"We fight," Thor repeated.

“You said that bit,” Loki retorted. “I’m more interested in the surviving the fight part of the plan.”

Thor glanced over at Valkyrie, whose eyes were back on the hologram, contemplating. “I have a plan,” she announced. When she turned around, she looked passed Thor to Loki, whose eyes narrowed.

“I’m not going to like it very much, am I?”

“Not even a little bit.”

“I’m _not_ doing ‘get help’.”

Valkyrie ignored him, turning her attention to Thor. “I think you should stay behind,” she said.

Thor blinked at her. “I’m sorry, I think I just misheard you.”

“You didn’t,” Valkyrie replied bluntly. “These people just lost their home, Thor. They can’t lose their king too.”

Thor felt the sting of his missing eye when she said _king._ He shouldn’t be king. His father…his father should still be king, should still be alive…

“I need to go,” he insisted, a lump forming in his throat. “I can’t…” He saw the other two looking at him with concern, and pulled himself together.

“We lose no one else,” he stated, pulling himself to his full height. “We stand together. Always. Now,” he turned to Valkyrie. “How are we bringing Bruce home?”

***

Bruce knew he should be freaking out.

_I’m on an alien spaceship,_ his mind was telling him. Not that that was new. He’d been on multiple alien spaceships by this point.

_I’m a prisoner on an alien spaceship._ That was new. And bad. Very, very bad.

So why did he feel _nothing?_

No anger. No stress. No dread. Just _numb._

It had been like that since Ragnarok. The second the danger had passed, that Thor and Valkyrie had taken over the situation, something inside him had shut down. He was going through the motions, but it was as if he was disconnected from his body, the movements and the words belonging to someone else. He watched as a disinterested spectator, as they slowly made their way towards earth.

_Earth._ Earth was home, Earth was Natasha and Tony; it was Steve and Clint. Earth was Betty. It should make him feel something. 

It didn’t.

He had barely resisted when they came for him. He knew he should fight. Somewhere, a small voice was begging him to do something, anything, but he couldn’t. He was a passenger. He had no control anymore.

So he let them take him, let them put him on his knees while they issued demands to someone he couldn't see, then locked him away in this cell. He had a vague sense that someone might be coming for him.

A small part of him wished they wouldn’t.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise update!
> 
> Thanks a ton to onward_came_the_meteors to jumping on board to make this work a fun collab!

“Alright, Revengers. One of our own is missing—nay, taken—and we will stop at nothing to bring him home. Or, at least, to this ship. Which is kind of home now, if you think about, if Asgard is a people and all the people are now here—”

He heard a cleared throat, probably from Valkyrie, and hastened on.

“So...Assemble!”

Loki made a show of looking around the room. The three of them had gathered around the exit to the ship, preparing for to follow Valkyrie’s plan through. The plan that was mostly _hit_ _as_ _many_ _Kree_ _as_ _possible_ _and_ _don’t_ _get_ _hit_ _back_. “What are you talking about, ‘Assemble?’We’re all here.”

“It’s just a thing that... never mind. Let’s move out.” Thor adjusted the eyepatch, reaching for Mjolnir and feeling his fist close around air. Right. One more loss on the list that wasn’t - he repeated, _wasn’t -_ going to grow any longer. 

He felt Loki’s eyes flick to Thor’s closed fist but, for once, his brother didn’t comment. The God of Mischief had ignored Thor’s earlier order to suit up. He had instead spend the time lounging against the Stateman’s walls, his watchful gaze on Thor and Valkyrie’s attempts to arm themselves with what few supplies they had. 

Valkyrie kept throwing side-eyes at Thor, the concern evident. She’d been the one to suggest the plan, but she still didn’t look entirely sold either. Thor couldn’t blame her; they were, essentially, walking into the enemy’s clutches and hoping it would all just work out.

Thor knew he was the one who was most invested. Valkyrie got along fine with Bruce, but she was blatant enough about preferring Hulk, and there had been the barest hint of disappointment in her eyes when Bruce had explained that that wouldn’t be happening for a while, if ever. And Loki… well, he definitely didn’t prefer Hulk. Far, far from it. 

Thor had been watching the interactions between the two of them ever since they’d met on Sakaar, and even he still couldn’t figure out whether it was Bruce who was more afraid of Loki, or vice versa.

Preferring _anybody_ wasn’t really Loki’s M.O. (Barring whatever had gone on between him and the Grandmaster, because Thor had heard the rumors from the Sakaarans, and well... he had questions he wasn’t sure he wanted the answers to.)

Thor had his hand on the door when Loki couldn’t hold his thoughts back any longer. “So… you both know this is a trap, right?” The words went unheard. “You’re practically handing yourselves over to -”

“Yes, Loki,” Thor cut across him. “We’ve gathered that.”

“Someone’s jealous he wasn’t on the ransom list,” Valkyrie muttered, checking her sword for maybe the twentieth time.

Loki cut her a scathing look, his next words aimed at Thor. “I’m just saying - are you _sure_ about this?”

The hologram replayed in Thor’s head. Bruce on his knees. Spears at his throat.“I don’t need to be.”

Loki looked ready to argue further, but Valkyrie shut him up with a look. “Maybe we should see if the Kree are willing to trade.”

Loki closed his mouth, only to mutter something about resources and priorities and if _he_ was king—

“Enough,” Thor interrupted. He was getting nervous about how much time they were spending here; time where Bruce was alone and captured. “Trap or not - we’re going.”

Loki raised an eyebrow. “You realize I never actually said I would help.”

“I know,” Thor replied. “But you’re going to, aren’t you?”

Loki didn’t look happy about it, but he didn’t disagree either. 

If Thor was being honest, Valkyrie didn’t look much better. She had been the first to point out that they were in space, on the liberated personal spaceship of a planet-ruling overlord. They were protected by a weapons system with actual guns, not fireworks (it had taken some time to discern the difference), an assortment of Sakaaran gladiators, the surviving Asgardian warriors, and a literal Valkyrie. Galaxies away from any of their previously encountered enemies. So how the hell had the Kree been able to steal Bruce right off their ship?

Experience had proven that it was very hard to get Bruce Banner anywhere he didn’t want to go. 

Thor didn’t like where that train of thought went. A fuse was sparking in the wall beside him, and he forced himself to exhale, firmly banishing the thoughts from his mind. They were leaving now, and he had to focus. 

Bruce got lost all the time, anyway. He’d gotten lost only about half a day after they’d first met, crash landing off somewhere after being shot out of the helicarrier. He’d gotten lost trying to find the elevator in Stark's tower that one time (Natasha probably still had that on video). And, of course, he’d gotten lost in outer space. 

But Thor was going to bring him back. He was going to bring everybody back. _Because that’s what heroes do._

The memory of a ball smacking him in the face rose unbidden to the surface, and he winced. Then again, nobody on Earth needed to hear _all_ the details of their great adventure.

***

Bruce wasn’t sure how long he’d been lying there.

He was hunched in a position that would almost definitely hurt later, but he couldn’t bring himself to move. The Kree soldiers had propped him up with their spears for what he had assumed was the alien version of a ransom video, then they’d left. The moment the cell door slammed shut, he’d slumped to the ground and stayed there. 

The ironic thing was, this cell wasn’t a whole lot different from his room on the Asgardian ship - if someone had removed the few bits of furniture from it. Blank and gray and empty. Someplace he could be alone with his thoughts. Not that he really wanted that. 

But that wasn’t really the point, was it? There wasn’t really a point, because either things would happen to him or they wouldn’t, either he would continue or he wouldn’t, and he hadn’t had a say in his life for over a decade, so there was no reason for that to change now. 

His wrists hurt. Had he been tied up at some point? He couldn’t remember. It was like a vague dream, being captured. And that was funny, wasn’t it, because it had happened so many times before (Ross, an incident with A.I.M, the time Clint had pissed off that Serbian princess) that they had just blurred together. He didn’t know how it had happened. How the Kree had even boarded the Statesman. How nobody had noticed him leaving. 

And he didn’t much care. 

It didn’t matter. He was here now, and here he would stay until someone moved him. Maybe the someone would be the Kree again, ready to do something else nefarious and evil alien-y. Maybe the someone would be an Asgardian rescue party, derailing their course for him (and for _what?)_ Maybe the someone would come from inside his own head, and then he really wouldn’t have a say at all. That was the problem with having exactly one backup plan, one-size-fits-all, zero-to-a-hundred. And said backup plan was currently clamoring to get out from inside his head. 

“Shut up,” he muttered listlessly. 

_“No,”_ the Hulk muttered right back.

Bruce knew that if this particular environment continued, he would Hulk out again sooner or later. And still, _still - -_ he couldn’t bring himself to give a damn (my dear). At least he still had enough presence of mind to recognize that that was messed up (It was messed up, right? _Right?)_ He should care, he should be doing something about the situation, but he could barely bring himself to lift his head and keep his eyes open, let alone hold up under the Hulk hammering away against his mental defenses. 

He’d been kidnapped before. Hulk had been kidnapped before. Both of them knew what the experience could entail, and Hulk was roaring at him to just _move_ before things got a whole lot worse. 

_At least one of us cares about our physical well-being._

His mouth quirked before flattening out. It was hard to hold onto emotion - _any_ emotion - now, hard not to just passively drift through each moment, each conversation, each day. Hard to break through the thick heavy curtain that seemed to envelop him—or maybe envelop the world _from_ him. Somewhere along the way, he’d decided the effort just wasn’t worth it. 

He’d spent a lot of time turning over his own hypothesis in his head: _if I turn into the Hulk, I am never going to come back again._

A part of him had decided that might be nice, might be tempting to just slip away into nothingness, maybe a whisper in the back of a pulsing green brain, except that they were going back to _Earth_ , and he couldn’t let it be the next battleground. Not after the last time he’d relinquished control, when there had been two years of blood on his hands - 

And Bruce couldn’t die. That had been… established. So letting the Hulk loose on the world, possibly indefinitely…He didn’t want that either. 

There was no path of least resistance, no matter how he tried to think about it, but what he was doing now was probably the closest approximation. 

The Hulk made another, angrier, noise in the back of his head.

“I said shut up,” Bruce muttered again, hitting the back of his own head. “You had your chance. You can’t be trusted. And you’re giving me a headache.”

But without Bruce, there was no one else _but_ Hulk. 

And Bruce wasn’t strong enough to—

Bruce heard a sound in the distance, a sound suspiciously like a battle, but he didn’t move, didn’t shift from that hunched-over position on the ground.

_Stay still enough, and no one will see you._

_Eyes low, and you’ll blend in._

_Don’t react, and maybe you’ll be able to disappear._

Then the door to his cell burst open, and some part of him was still sane enough to hope it was Thor.

It wasn’t. Of course, it wasn’t.

**Author's Note:**

> So hey, I have this film and screenwriting podcast? It's called "Kill the Cat" and once a month my co-host and I and break down one of our favourite movies or tv shows and look at why they work, including Harry Potter, The Princess Bride, Brooklyn Nine-Nine and, of course, the MCU.
> 
> You can check it out on [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ypaen3yM5Q&t=1s&ab_channel=KilltheCatPodcast), [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/show/5hCprc9UCBZP4srFrBXKT1?si=ZOqdhMlVQvqV2fG5PxuvOA), or anywhere you listen to podcasts. 
> 
> And hey. You're doing great.


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